Drones have been around for some time and more recently have been implemented in solar farms for a variety of tasks. Several teachings focus on drones configured to take over duties that are normally performed by a solar farm personnel such as maintenance, installations, and other less typical solar farm operations. Some disclosures discuss drones configured to dock on top of solar panels to facilitate cleaning procedures of photovoltaic cells. Other disclosures discuss drones configured to travel along tracks to reach their destination and accomplish programmable tasks.
For example, one such system is taught by U.S. Pat. No. 9,882,067 to Britcher (Britcher). Britcher describes a system for transporting and installing large photovoltaic modules, and more particularly, a photovoltaic module handling system that does not require a conveyance vehicle to travel along the ground and that enables substantially automated replenishment of photovoltaic modules in a solar panel array. Another such system is taught by U.S. Patent Application Publication 2017/0210470 to Pardell (Pardell). Pardell describes a drone system including a corresponding docking station on surfaces such as a glass surface of the photovoltaic cells or solar panels, wherein the drone is configured to clean the surface with a cleaning device. While these systems seek to use drones for facilitating certain tasks in solar farms, these prior teachings do not address the problem common to all solar farms of maximizing a solar panel position throughout the day so that a maximum exposure of the photovoltaic cells to available solar energy is ensured.
U.S. Pat. No. 9,020,636 to Tadayon (Tadayon), on the other hand discloses a robot for solar farms, which addresses changing an angle of a solar panel using a myriad of complex spherical joints/hinges, lifter(s)/jacks, gears, angle adjusters, engaging mechanisms, motor(s), tracks, and a tracking mechanism. Accordingly, although Tadayon describes using a robot for various functions including for lowering or changing a slope or angle of solar panels, that system requires generally prohibitively expensive equipment, complex installation, and impliedly complex maintenance. Such complexity is impractical for implementation by ordinary solar farms. That system requires increased energy consumption (for installation and running of the robots necessary to facilitate the same), and as such is inefficient. Moreover, and for similar reasons, presently existing systems may not be easily retrofitted to meet the Tadayon specifications.
Therefore, there exists an inadequately addressed need for a system and method that autonomously positions solar panels to maximize solar exposure, which: is easy to install and does away with complex panel positioning systems common in the art; is autonomous and efficient; and includes easily retrofittable components that may be adapted by existing solar farms.
It is to these ends that the present invention has been developed.